Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Köll, Elizabeth (1965-....)
Titre(s) : Railroads and the transformation of China [Texte imprimé] / Elisabeth Köll
Publication : Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard university press, copyright 2019
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (X-396 p.) : ill. ; 25 cm
Collection : Harvard studies in business history ; 52
Lien à la collection : Harvard studies in business history
Note(s) : Notes bibliogr. Index
As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still
driving the nation's economic success, rail has no equal. Railroads and the Transformation
of China is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation
from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present. China's first fractured lines
were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national
system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at
large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap
Forward when lines suffered in the "battle for steel," and the Cultural Revolution,
during which Red Guards were granted free passage to "make revolution" across the
country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Köll's expansive study shows how
railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring
model of Chinese infrastructure expansion. The railroads persisted because they were
exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews,
Köll builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic
management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations
amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Köll shows, rail provided a blueprint
for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains
an essential component of the PRC's politically charged, technocratic economic model
for China's future.
Sujet(s) : Transports ferroviaires -- Chine -- Histoire
Politique ferroviaire -- Chine -- Histoire
Infrastructure (économie politique) -- Chine
Indice(s) Dewey :
385.095 109 (23e éd.) = Transports ferroviaires - Chine - Histoire
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780674368170. - ISBN 0674368177 (rel.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb456751949
Notice n° :
FRBNF45675194
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : Part I. Competing interests and railroad construction: Technology and semicolonial
ventures ; Managing transitions in the early Republic ; Part II. Railroads in the
market and social space: Moving goods in the marketplace ; Moving people, transmitting
ideas ; Part III. The making and the unmaking of the state: Professionalizing and
politicizing the railroads ; Crisis management ; Part IV. On track to socialism:
Postwar reorganization and expansion ; Permanent revolution and continuous reform
; Conclusion: The legacies of China's railroad system.